Chapter 31: TEASER
Old, sharp eyes followed Nami's every movement.
Measuring.
Judging.
Daring her to try to leave the bed.
Cured or dead.
The words echoed long after the blade was gone, bouncing endlessly inside her skull.
Her chest tightened. Too tight. Like something heavy had settled there and refused to move.
If that was the rule—
Then what did that make Y/N?
The thought cracked something open as memories suddenly surged in.
Y/N hunched over on the ship, skin drained of color as Sanji and Luffy half-carried her below deck, forcing her to rest when she insisted she was fine. The way she’d still dragged herself to Nami’s side afterward—still awake, still calculating, even while her body betrayed her.
Hot. Then cold. Shivering one moment, burning the next.
Her weak smile.
Her jokes that didn’t quite land.
The way her hands trembled as she waved it off.
She’d vomited blood.
She remembered that.
Dalton’s house. The floor, the couch, her own coat streaked dark red. Blood spilling through the strategist’s fingers as she tried—tried—to stop it. It bubbling up anyway, choking her, slipping from her nose as she gasped for air.
Those wet, gurgling breaths.
The sound crawled up Nami’s spine now, lodged behind her ribs, refusing to leave.
She swallowed hard, throat tight, dread sinking deeper with every heartbeat.
Kureha had avoided every question. Skirted around her name. Redirected, dismissed—too deliberate to be coincidence.
Is she dead?
The thought sat there, heavy and unmoving, poisoning everything it touched.
Nami lay rigid on the bed, fingers curling into the sheets, heart pounding so loudly she was sure it could be heard. The warmth she’d woken up to felt thin now. Fragile. Like a lie that could shatter at any moment.
And for the first time since she’d opened her eyes—
She was truly afraid.
